Since 2012, the City has made its mission to elevate wages for city employees to market levels. Each round of union contract negotiations has brought the City closer to meeting its goal. With the recent PBA (2020), IAFF (2021), and SEIU (2021), agreements, the goal has been reached for those three unions. The City is negotiating with PMSA toward the goal to bring the salaries of the fourth union to market levels. The subject of this item is to grant a four percent (4%) across-the-board salary adjustment for those employees who are not members of a collective bargaining union. These employees are department heads, public-safety, administrative, supervisory and confidential, and  part-time personnel, referred to as non-affiliated employees.

To provide a pay increase that reflects equity among all of the City’s employees, COLA increases were provided in a Salary Survey dated October 2021. Data from the survey was received from similar agencies that include Palm Beach County, the Cities of Daytona Beach, Delray Beach, Lakeland, Minneola, Stuart, West Palm Beach, and Palm Beach Gardens. The employee increases ranged from 1.5% to 8%. Based on the salary survey, the four percent (4%) proposed increase is fair and equitable based on other agencies’ increases.  The increase proposal is for the 2021/2022 fiscal year and has no impact on the impending salary survey that will be conducted on behalf of the non-affiliated employees.